Cambridge, MA, February 13, 2019 — NeuroCycle Therapeutics, Inc. (NCT) announced today that is has been awarded a $0.5M Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) to evaluate its advanced subtype-selective GABAA receptor modulators, NCT10004 and NCT10015, in models of Dravet Syndrome (Award Number R43NS107051). This grant builds upon the company’s strategy to develop a portfolio of small molecule drug candidates that maximize efficacy and minimize side effects through selective targeting of the central nervous system.

Dravet Syndrome (DS) is a rare and severe form of epilepsy impacting around 1 in 15,700 people. It is also one of the most resistant to treatment. Patients with DS often have their first seizure by age one, and suffer frequent, severe seizures their entire life — often accompanied by developmental delay, and cognitive and motor impairments. Worse, it is estimated that 15-20% of patients will not survive to adulthood. Current treatment options fail to provide complete seizure control and cause serious side effects in over 50% of patients. Better therapeutic strategies are urgently needed. In 80% of patients, DS results from loss-of-function mutations in the SCN1A gene which encodes brain voltage-gated sodium channel type-I, NaV1.1.

With this grant, NCT will test its compounds in juvenile SCN1A heterozygous knockout mice which recapitulate the key symptoms of Dravet syndrome. Studies using these mice are considered highly translatable to human disease.

About Neurocycle Therapeutics

NeuroCycle Therapeutics, Inc. is a privately held pharmaceutical company unlocking the potential of small-molecule CNS therapeutics to transform patient’s lives. The company is currently focused on selectively targeting specific GABAA receptor subtypes to treat diseases related to central sensitization including chronic itch, and chronic pain, and epilepsy syndromes such as Dravet Syndrome. NCT’s lead program, NCT10004, is currently in IND-enabling studies and is expected to begin Phase 1 trials in healthy volunteers by the end of 2019. The company believes that recent advances in animal models, clinical trial design, and GABAA receptor structural biology will allow the company to build a strong pipeline of potential treatments across multiple therapeutic areas.